CLAIM: President Joe Biden reacted to the Allen, Texas, outlet mall attack by claiming “there have been roughly 200 mass shootings” in America thus far in 2023.
VERDICT: FALSE, as long as one adheres to the standard definition of a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more individuals were killed by one attacker in one incident.
People raise their hands as they leave a shopping center after a shooting, Saturday, May 6, 2023, in Allen, Texas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Biden said, “American communities have suffered roughly 200 mass shootings already this year, according to leading counts.”
The count that many on the left have begun to watch is that of the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), which replaced the standard definition of a mass shooting with one that counts incidents in which there are “a minimum of four victims shot, either injured or killed, not including any shooter who may also have been killed or injured in the incident.”
Emergency personnel work the scene of a shooting at Allen Premium Outlets on May 6, 2023, in Allen, Texas. (Stewart F. House/Getty Images)
In other words, a drive-by shooting in which four people are wounded is labeled a “mass shooting” by GVA.
Breitbart News noted that the Hill relied on GVA’s numbers and reported over 600 mass shootings in the U.S. last year. Now Biden is claiming over 200 such shootings at this point in 2023.
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Conversely, a database maintained by the Associated Press/USA Today/Northeastern University uses the standard definition of a “mass shooting” and shows there were 19 such incidents in the U.S. from January 1, 2023, to May 2, 2023.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. AWR Hawkins holds a PhD in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.